from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden made a rather odd comment during his visit to Pakistan this week. "We want what you want: a strong, stable, democratic Pakistan," he told a news conference, according to the Washington Post. "We wish your success because it's in our own interest."

from Environment Forum:

Feeling hungry? Maybe that's because of all the news, from around the world, about food today -- how much people produce, how much more they need, how much it's going to cost, how much of an effect it will have on climate change, and vice versa.

from Tales from the Trail:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wrapping up a high-stakes trip to Yemen to discuss counter-terrorism cooperation on Wednesday, stumbled briefly upon re-entering her airplane. Clinton was unhurt and newswise it was a non-event -- except that it was captured by television cameras.

from Afghan Journal:

The American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War has a new report out that says rather unequivocally that the United States is starting to turn the war around in southern Afghanistan following the surge. Since the deployment of U.S. Marines to Helmand in 2009 and the launch of an offensive there followed by operations in Kandahar, the Taliban has effectively lost all its main safe havens in the region, authors Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan argue.

from Photographers' Blog:

A year after the Haiti earthquake killed about 250,000 people and left more than a million homeless, a major multimedia documentary by Thomson Reuters Foundation takes viewers to the streets and tent cities of the shattered capital.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

For everyone trying to understand the implications of Salman Taseer's assassination, this essay from 2007 is good place to start (h/t Abu Muqawama). "The Politics of God" is about why Europe decided, after years of warfare over the correct interpretation of Christianity, to separate church and state. But it is also relevant to Pakistan, where the killing of the Punjab governor over his opposition to the country's blasphemy laws has shown that what was left of Pakistani secularism, is, if not dead, at least in intensive care.

from Afghan Journal:

Steve Coll, the president of the New America Foundation and a South Asia expert, has raised the issue of the safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons in the wake of the assassination of the governor of most populous Punjab state by one of his bodyguards. It's a question that comes up each time Pakistan is faced with a crisis whether it a major act of violence such as this or a political/economic meltdown or a sudden escalation of tensions with India obviously, but also the United States.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

In one of the more anguished posts about the murder of provincial governor Salman Taseer, Pakistani blogger Huma Imtiaz wrote that his assassination "is not the beginning of the end. This is the end. There is no going back from here, there is no miracle cure, there is no magic wand that will one day make everything better. Saying 'enough is enough' does not cut it anymore ..."